Arithmetic value of "" in EL expressions

In Enthware mock question "com.enthuware.ets.scwcd.v5.2.179"
It is stated in answer and explanation that EL expression
${requestScope['none'] eq 0} will return true.The reason given is : "" is interpreted as 0.
But I got false as its output (line 1)

output is:

ge true
gt true
eq false
and false
not true
value

Can someone please explain this output and hence the arithmetic value of "".

EL is "null" friendly. But "" is not null so you will get a NumberFormatException. Try commenting the line "request.setAttribute("none",""); " and you will get the output as "1" for the "${requestScope['none'] + 1}" statement as EL treats the null attribute as 0.

Hi Hasnain ,
Yes.It helped.Thanks.So it means Tomacat 6.0.18 is not behaving as expected from specificaton.And Tomcat 5.5.9 was behaving as expected.
Anyway, i know what is correct for the exam.Its always what spec says.

Chinmay, read the specs, its given in the specs, for relational operators, if one of the operand is a number, the second is converted into a number too, in that if the second operand is null or empty string, then its converted to 0. Read this page. Specifically these parts